


Valföðr

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Category: Highlander, Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos and Silas find an interesting figure when hunting one day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valföðr

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carenejeans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carenejeans/gifts).



> Thank you to Ickaimp, for helping with ideas, and bouncing around thoughts on mythologies and shapeshifters and such. Also, thank you to lferion, as well, for helping me bounce ideas around at the beginning, and for being a second set of eyes for when it was done and what fit in, and general beta-work.

They're hunting, just the two of them, in the cold northern forests that Silas had grown up in. It's nice, to be without Caspian or Kronos - the former because he's entirely too blood-thirsty in all the wrong ways, the latter because he reminds Silas of the winter-starved wolves without packs. Methos is a far better hunting partner, who knows how to hunt, and isn't as dangerous to his hunting partner as to the prey.

Neither is expecting their current prey to be anything more interesting than another Immortal, who will chose to fight or die. They don't expect his laughter, which sounds something between Methos in a good mood and Caspian in a bad one.

"You think you can kill me?" He opens his arms wide, grinning bright and vicious as Caspian at his worst. "Try, little lightning gods."

Silas frowns, but shrugs, and looks to Methos for permission. If his brother wants this kill, he'll leave it be, but Methos doesn't look like he intends to draw his sword. Just watching the stranger with a frown between thoughtful and annoyed.

"Don't tell me you're afraid now, bear-child." The man bares his throat to Silas, offering up his life without any sign of fear. "Go on. Take your ax to me, if you dare."

Methos shrugs when Silas looks to him again, and Silas moves, swinging his great-axe in an arc that takes the man's head messily off his neck. Leaves a body sprawled on the forest floor, and no Quickening to follow. Just a mad mortal, then, who saw more than most. Not the most interesting of prey.

* * *

A bloody corpse is left hanging from a tree just outside their camp three days later, the bear gutted and the liver and heart missing. It's not the neat work of someone with a bronze knife, but ragged tears of teeth and claws. Or maybe sharpened nails.

It is not a gift, mangled as it is, and hung as it is, but a warning. Silas doesn't like it, but Methos looks thoughtful again, and says only that they shouldn't waste the meat. Never mind that the hunters are now the prey, stalked by something Silas doesn't understand. Mortals are mortal, and Immortals die if you cut their heads off.

"There are other things in the world, that are beyond mortal and Immortal," is all Methos says, and sets to work skinning the bear. They might as well stay here long enough to tan the hide, so there's another fur for their tents when they return to their brothers. It won't stop their hunter to keep moving, after all, and Silas refuses to be herded like a deer into a trap.

Waiting takes days before the strange man comes to their camp, crouching at the edge of the firelight, watching them with an avid expression on his face that reminds Silas again of Caspian.

"You do not run, shadow-walker." The man looks at Methos with a momentary smile. "Do you know why he doesn't run, bear-child?"

"We are not prey." Silas scowls, tightening his grip on his axe, and Methos reaches out to stay his hand.

"Because we do not fear even the legends of the wolf-made-man." Methos's voice is quiet, and amused. "It will do no good to cut his head off again, brother," he says, even quieter, his gaze fixed on the man's neck.

The man lets out a bark of laughter, grinning bright in the firelight. "So you know the stories, song-made-blade." He creeps closer to the light, baring his throat again. "Do you know all the stories, lightning gods?"

Silas follows Methos's gaze to the man's neck, and frowns at the ribbon, pristine and pale, wound around his neck. It should be as dirty and bloody as the skin around it, but isn't. Nor is the silvery pin that holds it together, and Silas reaches out intent on pulling it free - there's no reason to have a ribbon pinned around a man's neck.

Methos's hand grabbing his wrist stops him, and Silas frowns while the man sighs.

"I have heard the stories, Fenrir Lokison." Methos's voice is mild, but there's a familiar chill beneath it, like winter coming early, warning the man not to try his patience. "We will not free you."

Fenrir huffs, glaring at Methos. "The bear-child would have."

"He hasn't heard the stories." Methos lets Silas draw back his hand, and Silas frowns at the exchange. "I'm not interested in destroying the world, even by accident."

Without the world, they would have no hunting grounds, no prey, no brothers. Silas picks up his axe, tightening his grip on the haft until it's almost painful.

"Now you've scared the bear-child." Fenrir bares his teeth at Silas, eyes bright with madness. Dangerous and daring Silas to try to kill him again. To bury the ax in his skull or his torso, and see what happens. "You should tell him the stories, if you really want to frighten him, winter-storm."

"They're meant to warn, not to frighten." Methos smiles, leaning back comfortably. "If you wish to frighten, you would have to make a greater legend, wolf-made-man."

Fenrir snorts, rolling his eyes. "Like the serpent-beneath-wave, or the half-woman that are called my siblings?" He bares his teeth. "They do not frighten me."

"Because you are mad, Lokison." Methos shrugs. "Driven mad, perhaps, but mad nonetheless."

"Perhaps I am, but what does it matter?" Fenrir curls his lip. "I am prisoner for what I am, not what I have done."

"And what you will do, if left to all your strength," Methos counters, though there's amusement laced through his voice as well. "You made the threat."

"They were banishing me for being too big, too powerful." Fenrir shrugs. "I thought it only fair."

Silas lets out a huff of agreement, though he doesn't see how this skinny man could have been considered too big unless those who banished him are tiny. Although it certainly would make sense for them to be so, if they're afraid of someone like Fenrir. Tiny and weak and helpless as children, and afraid of everything.

"Be that as it may, I prefer not to risk the threat being made real." Methos shrugs, leaning back against the log behind him, seemingly at ease. "You should leave, Lokison. I am not interested in your promises or your threats."

Fenrir curls his lip, but shrugs after a long moment. "As you like, pack-destroyer." He waits several minutes more before he leaves, though, watching them in silence.

* * *

"Even now, he'll still not take the sword." Fenrir kicks his bare feet in the air, picking at the lichen on the rock with the ragged nails on one hand. "Nor unweave the net, nor sunder the gate."

"He's the tale-spinner, the first-born, the most generous of my devotees." Hel is pale as the winter sky, and nearly as transparent as clean water, sitting serenely on her throne of bones. "He's bereft of his brothers, but he lived long before them, and long without them. He will not become a fool just because he does not have them, little pup."

_//That One is part of the bindings now. When he wishes them sundered, and the world remade, he will be a part of the remaking.//_ Jörmungandr is deep beneath the wave, but his voice rumbles up through the earth to where the others sit. The earth trembles a little, a reminder to the mortals that the world is not their making.

"The remaking will happen." Vali is sprawled on the sand, nose to nose with Nari, though there is still the same barrier between them as between Hel and the world. "But I can wait for it. I could wait forever, maybe." He spreads a hand against the barrier, and Nari does the same from the other side. "Nari is always with me anyway."

"Because you're cowards, and never _go_ anywhere." Fenrir huffs, dropping back so he can stare up at the overcast sky. "I want to eat the gods."

"You will have the chance eventually, little pup," Hel soothes, a smile curving bloodless lips. "But not if you keep needling the maker of monsters."

* * *

Methos looks down at his mug of mead, then out at the small group of students who've gathered in his cozy study. They're studying mythology, which is more uncomfortably close to the truth than history is, sometimes, and the current unit is on Norse myths. He could tell them the lies that he helped to shape when the myths were written, or he could tell them the tales as he knows them.

Looking out at the students again, he catches the gaze of the oldest of them, who isn't really taking the class for the class so much as the tales of the teacher. A smile twists his lips, and he draws in a breath to tell the myth properly.

* * *

_Listen as I tell you the tale of Loki's children._

_Listen as you hear of the wolf-made-man, Fenrir who is bound in ribbon and pierced by a sword._

_Listen as I speak of the serpent-under-wave, Jörmungandr whose net is made of fire and stone._

_Listen as you learn of the half-woman, Hel who reigns on her throne of the dead over the land of the dishonored fallen._

_Listen as I paint for you the image of the mirrored gate, of twins Vali and Nari trapped ever together and apart._

_Listen as you imagine the great-horse, Sleipnir bound to the hand of Odin Allfather until Ragnarok comes._

_These are the children of the seiðmaðr who was oath-brother to the rúnatýr. These are the ones bound in the blood of the Valföðr, who walks undying upon Midgard with raven-hair bound with feathers. These are the instruments of Ragnarøkkr, the deaths of the gods and the remaking of the world._

_So listen, all you who hear me, and heed._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Other Side of the Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391983) by [Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri)




End file.
